Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R,C,I,Ref – East Shore) and Assemblyman Ron Castorina (R,C,I,Ref – South Shore) hosted a press conference at Greencroft Playground in Bay Terrace today to highlight City Hall’s failure to protect schoolchildren from speeding vehicles with the most basic tool: the stop sign. The two lawmakers say the city should place “all-way” stop signs at intersections near certain schools and playgrounds to protect pedestrians.

Greencroft Playground lies at the intersection of Redgrave Avenue and Greencroft Avenue, adjacent to PS 53, a kindergarten through 5th-grade elementary school. Closest to the intersection is a jungle gym and slide, just a block from Hylan Boulevard, the borough’s busiest thoroughfare. The property also contains a baseball field, basketball courts, a second jungle gym, and other amenities for children and families.

Stop signs exist on Greencroft Avenue but not on Redgrave Avenue, which runs from Hylan Boulevard to the school and experiences faster and more frequent traffic. Additionally, there are no stop signs on Durant Avenue at Ainsworth Avenue in front of the school. The pair also pointed to lack of “all-way” stop signs at neighboring school I.S.24 and vegetation growth along Hylan Boulevard that cause pedestrians to walk inthe middle of one of Staten Island’s busiests streets to access bus stops.

“If Mayor de Blasio is truly concerned about pedestrian safety he would address situations like this. I attended PS 53 as a child and I spent a lot of time walking down these sidewalks, crossing these streets, and playing in Greencroft Playground, and the situation has become increasingly dangerous with more cars on our streets than ever. A stop sign is such a simple solution.” said Malliotakis. “And, just up the street on Hylan Boulevard, pedestrians are unable to walk on the sidewalk because the city fails to maintain vegetation overgrowth. You say ‘Vision Zero’ but here you have a situation where you are forced to walk on one of Staten Island’s major artieries to get to your bus stop.”

“Unfortunately, the speeding problem on Staten Island has only gotten worse. Drivers far too frequently exceed the speed limit by over ten or fifteen miles per hour. The speed camera program has not deterred speeding on our Island. It has however generated revenue for the City of New York. If we truly want to ensure the safety of our children around the schools which they spend most of their time, we need all-way stop signs. We need to stop pretending that this speed camera program is here for safety and start implementing measures that will make a difference,” said Assemblyman Castorina.

“Mayor de Blasio ran on a platform that promised to lift people out of poverty and make New York City more affordable. A new study by StreetEasy.com shows that New York City is LESS affordable and the tale of two cities has only worsened during the mayor’s first term. Bill de Blasio’s reliance on increasing the property tax levy 28% as well as double digit increases in water bills has made it increasingly difficult for property owners and renters to keep up. These are the types of taxes and fees that are passed directly on to renters. Bill de Blasio has actively lobbied against imposition of a property tax cap that would limit these increases.

“As Mayor, I will continue to fight for the tax cap proposed in Albany, that will protect property owners and tenants alike. The bottom line is hardworking New Yorkers can’t afford another four years of Bill de Blasio as mayor.”

Days after another NYPD officer was targeted and almost killed by a mentally ill man, GOP mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis is out with a thoughtful plan for how New York can better deal with people suffering from serious mental illness.

Those unfortunates, Malliotakis noted Monday, “have become lost in a system that is mostly geared for the high-functioning mentally ill.” She wants to shift the emphasis, targeting resources to the most desperate.

That means replacing some of Mayor de Blasio’s programs (such as the ad campaign focused on removing the “stigma” of mental illness, and others that target lesser issues, such as depression) with ones that focus on, for example, paranoid schizophrenics.

The kind of people, in short, whose dysfunction is so serious they can’t understand what’s wrong with them. This, she argues, can save taxpayer dollars by diverting people from the criminal-justice system into treatment.

Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, the Republican nominee and the clear alternative to Bill de Blasio in the race for mayor, unveiled a new count-up clock on her website which is designed to tally the number of days since May 18, 2016; the date Mayor de Blasio said he would offer up, “a whole lot of evidence” that would prove that his administration always acted in the public interest. Assemblywoman Malliotakis called the clock, “A stark reminder that 448 days later, our ethically challenged mayor still hasn’t produced much to the media and the people except for some heavily redacted emails that show next to nothing.”

At the time of his pledge, Mayor de Blasio was under 5 separate investigations and promised that he would make public a list of all donors to his political campaign or non-profit efforts like the Campaign for One New York or individuals who had been asked to donate to other campaigns by the Mayor or his staff. In the nearly 15 months that have passed, Bill de Blasio has continually stonewalled the media and the people of New York on this and a host of other issues, including his travel and security costs paid by the city and whether members of the NYPD were instructed to clear the homeless from subway stations and trains that were to be used by Mayor de Blasio and his entourage.

Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis said, “Over the course of the last year or so, we’ve learned a lot about Bill de Blasio’s gym habits, his relationship with Governor Cuomo, his admiration of FALN leaders and most recently his fondness for naps. But, we still haven’t learned all the facts about the transactional approach to government that is a hallmark of the de Blasio administration.

“On May 18, 2016, Mayor de Blasio pledged to release lists of individuals who had contributed to either his political campaign or non-profit campaigns affiliated with him and who were either doing business with the city or were in talks about doing business with the city in the future. Mayor de Blasio has broken his word. To date, basically all that’s been released are emails between Mayor de Blasio and his so called ‘agents of the city’ which are so filled with redactions that the average reader might mistake them for emails dealing with national security issues.

“So, today we are rolling out a new feature on my campaign website. We’re calling it the Bill de Blasio Count-up Clock and its purpose is as an easy reference point so that interested parties can track the length of time Mayor de Blasio has been stonewalling the media and residents of our city.

“Bill de Blasio is up for reelection and the voters have a right to know whether the mayor and his staff have given preferential treatment to supporters of the mayor.”